First of many...

Yesterday morning Tony taught what will most likely (and hopefully!) be the first of many classes in his philosophy career. With undergraduate classes now underway here, Tony's responsibilities for the fellowship he received from the department have kicked into high gear. This year he will be doing 6 hours of "tutoring" per week, which is similar to being a teaching assistant in the US. This semester he is working with undergraduate students from a huge (500+ students) intro level philosophy course. Since the lecture class is so big, they break the students up into small groups of 14 students for a one hour seminar where they discuss the class material and get more personalized teaching from PhD students. Tony is really looking forward to the semester and the opportunity to work with these students over the course of the semester.

In other news, summer has officially bid us farewell here in Edinburgh as the days are now noticeably shorter and the infamous Edinburgh wind has returned. I don't really understand how wind can be a seasonal thing - I would have thought it to be a geographical one that wouldn't change with the seasons. But unless the past 4 months of still air were a fluke, the wind does seem to be seasonal here - and it's back!! This also means that even my best efforts to keep my hair in a presentable state before walking to work, church, etc. are now futile.

Baby Bolos seems to be growing well as my belly is getting bigger and bigger. I've hit my baby bump with the refrigerator door several times in the last couple of weeks, nearly knocked over the pot on the stove by hitting the pot handle with my belly and have noticed small collections of crumbs resting on top of my belly after eating crumbly things lately...so apparently I am getting bigger than I even realize!

We've started meeting people at our new church and Sunday felt like a major turning point in our quest to get connected. We saw many of people we've recently met through the two groups we've joined (a parenting class and a theology reading group) and actually sat with someone we knew during the service. For the first time in a long time I feel somewhat at home in a church and I'm so thankful that this is coming together as we're preparing a major life change with this baby on the way.

Anniversaries

The past month has been filled with significant dates and it has made for a reflective and sentimental few weeks for me. August brought with it the anniversary of when we moved to Peru in 2007 and the anniversary of leaving Peru in 2008. Yesterday marked the day of our move to Edinburgh last year after a blessing of a visit in Denver (yes, airfare was significantly cheaper on Sept. 11), which carries a lot of memories of saying goodbye and leaving family and friends behind indefinitely. Today marks our arrival here in Edinburgh, which brings a whole different set of emotions and memories with it. Suffice it to say that we're much happier to be one year into this where we can look back and laugh at all the chaos and confusion that clouded our first few weeks here!

These past few years have held a lot of change and transition, a lot of hellos and goodbyes. It feels good to know we'll be here for another 3 years, though its a bit weird to think that by the time we finish we'll have been here longer than we've been anywhere else since we've been married. Our hearts are still tied deeply to the kids and work in Peru and I'm still trying to find the emotional and practical balance of how to manage that while moving forward with our new responsibilities and involvements here. Looking back over the last year I think we were in a bit of holding pattern, trying to adjust to life here and prepare for what would be coming next. Now that Tony's received funding and we know we're staying for 3 years we've been taking many more steps to connect with our new community here. We're excited about what the next 3 years may hold and are ready to jump in!

As mentioned above, we've been doing a lot of laughing and reminiscing over the many things that we found so confusing when we first arrived here one year ago. While English is obviously our shared language with the Brits, we did have a learning curve for certain terms and phrases. A few examples:

Knock on wood = touch wood
Six and one half dozen of the other = a six and two threes-ies
Sick = vomiting (something I caught onto after getting a panicked look from my coworkers when I said I was sick! "Ill" is their term for feeling sick.)
Dinner = tea
Expensive = dear
Knock up = wake up
Sleep in = a long lie

We recently took a quiz on American vs. British English to test our progression over the last year. Take it and see how you do! US vs. UK Vocabulary